In many environments, it may be desirable to detect accumulations of potentially hazardous gases. If a hazardous gas and/or a particulate matter accumulates to an explosive level, a spark from an electrical device can potentially cause an explosion and/or a fire.
A gas sensing device can be used to detect accumulations of hazardous gases and send a notification and/or alarm upon sensing a threshold quantity of a gas. An industrial plant, for example, may deploy a gas sensing system including gas sensing devices distributed throughout the plant. Such a system may also include one or more central monitoring stations, which receive signals from the gas sensing devices. If one of the gas sensing devices detects an amount of gas above a threshold quantity, for example, then an alarm condition is triggered at the central station. Such gas sensing systems may further alert an operator so that an action may be taken to preclude a potentially harmful result within the plant.
While such systems can be effective, it may be of importance that the gas sensing devices cannot cause the ignition of any hazardous gas and/or particulates in an environment. When a gas sensing device is capable of communicating wirelessly, there may be some concern that the radio of the gas sensing device and/or its antenna may cause an ignition.